


for the man who has everything

by QueenPersephoneofHades



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Family, Gen, Happy Birthday Scrooge!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-08 00:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12243678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPersephoneofHades/pseuds/QueenPersephoneofHades
Summary: For all the gold he's ever had and all the fame he's ever won, Scrooge can't think of one thing he wants more on his birthday.





	for the man who has everything

Huey is pretty used to being awoken in the middle of the night, most often because of a nightmare or someone stumbling in the darkness to get to the bathroom. He’s fine with that; it’s simply par for the course when living on a small houseboat with both of his brothers sharing his room. It’s just how life had worked in the Duck household for as long as he could remember.

He is _not_ used to being awoken by the door to their room getting kicked open so hard it ricochets off the wall with a bang, a high-pitched voice practically shrieking, “ _Gooooooooooood morning_!”

Huey startles completely awake, clutching his comforter for dear life as a loud _thump_ and a muffled “ _OW_ ” below signal Dewey sitting up too fast and smacking his head on the bunkbed for the millionth time, while Louie moaned like a foghorn and buried himself beneath pillow and blankets again.

Huey leans cautiously over the side of his bunk to find Webby practically dancing in the doorway, a mixing bowl filled with various baking supplies clutched in her hands as she squealed in excitement.

“Get up, get up, get up! We’ve only got a few hours to do this!” she cheers, skipping into their room to snatch Louie’s blanket and begin tugging him firmly out of bed, much to his rather loud displeasure.

“Weeeeebbyyyyyyyy,” Dewey groaned, flopping back onto the creaking springs of his mattress, “It is literally-” he checked his phone quickly “ _FOUR IN THE MORNING?!_ How can you be _awake_ and _functioning_ at a time like this?!”

“How can you _not be?!_ ” Webby rebuked, grinning like a madwoman as she released one brother to grab the other, shaking Dewey back and forth until he went cross-eyed. “I was so excited last night I got super nauseous and couldn’t get to sleep for hours, so instead I started reviewing my plans and amped them up a little! I don’t know how we’ll get through all of my ideas if we lump your guys’ stuff in, but I figured, you know, better to be prepared than not, of course!”

This, Huey decides, is a good time to intervene. “Uh, Webby?” he asks, diverting her attention again and luckily preventing her from pulling Dewey out of his bunk before he can get his feet under him. “What plans are you talking about?”

Webby released Dewey, beaming up at Huey despite his total obliviousness. “The birthday plans, of course!” she cheered, hopping from foot to foot like she can barely contain herself. “This is your first year at the manor, so I figured you’d want everything to be extra special! I hope you don’t mind that I got started without you, but Granny said it was okay for me to help her in the kitchen and I wanted to get started before-”

“Birfday?” Louie mumbles in confusion from his blanket cocoon.

“Yeah, what? Today’s your birthday? Why didn’t you tell us?! We can take you out for hamburgers later, okay? Promise, just let us sleep a liiiil longer-” Dewey’s words are stretched out by a yawn he covers with one hand as he relaxes completely, prepared to pass once again into oblivion.

Huey is the only one of the three awake and aware enough to watch Webby’s enthused smile slowly dim into confusion. “Noooo, my birthday was in September,” she corrects, looking down at the other two before looking up at Huey and raising her eyebrows. “Today is Uncle Scrooge’s birthday.”

Another _thump_ and an even louder _thud_ , Webby yelping in surprise and two identical cries of “ _OW!_ ” are the result of Dewey and Louie both jerking to attention too quickly, and Huey can’t quite muffle his giggles completely as he calmly pushed his blankets off and began climbing down the bunkbed ladder rather than fall out like his ridiculous siblings.

He finds Louie and Webby collapsed in a heap on the floor, the bowl full of cooking supplies somehow remaining upright in Webby’s hands through either sheer force of will or Webby’s assorted plethora of ninja skills. Dewey is massaging his forehead, grumbling mutinously but now fully awake, at the very least.

Huey smiles and offers a hand to both downed siblings, which they take with a few muttered “ows” and “thank you”s.

Once everyone is on their feet and somewhat coherent, he turns completely to Webby, hands on his hips. “Why didn’t anyone tell us about Uncle Scrooge’s birthday? Or _your_ birthday, for that matter? We would’ve planned something out weeks ago!” He doesn’t realize it sounds like he’s scolding her until she shrinks in place a little, blushing hotly and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“I kinda figured you already knew, seeing as he’s your uncle and he’s so famous and all. Plus, my birthday happened the weekend you moved into the manor, so we wouldn’t have gotten to celebrate it anyway, it’s not important,” she mumbles, looking at the walls, the floor, the beds, anything but the three of them.

The triplets all share familiar long-suffering looks amongst themselves.

Louie crosses his arms and gives Webby the raised eyebrow of doom, a look inspired by Uncle Donald and perfected by Mrs. Beakley. “Okay, first of all, your birthday _is_ important and we are _definitely_ having a make-up party later this month.”

“Second,” starts Dewey, before a flustered Webby can stutter a reply, “It feels like no one ever tells us anything in this house until after it’s already happened, so we’d really appreciate it if you told us these things before we make absolute fools of ourselves again, please and thank you.”

“We didn’t know Scrooge was our uncle until a couple of weeks ago,” Huey reminds her, shrugging in a ‘what can you do?’ way. “There’s a lot of stuff we still don’t know about him.”

Webby nods quickly, still a bit self-conscious. “Sure! I can tell you anything you want to know about him! You want to know anything in particular?”

Louie and Dewey share an exasperated look as Huey hops up the ladder again, reaching under his mattress to pull out his cook-notebook before hopping back down with it clutched to his chest, leaning forward with an enthusiastic grin stretching his beak wide. “What’s his favorite kind of cake?”

Webby’s face lights up again.

* * *

 

Mrs. Beakley is already in the kitchen when they traipse in, humming a tune as she gathers pots and pans and ingredients from the cupboards and fridge. She pauses to watch them flood in after Webby, an impressed smirk on her face. “You actually got them moving before noon? I’m shocked, dear.”

“I can be pretty persuasive, Granny,” Webby puffs up a bit at the compliment, casting a rather intimidating smile over her shoulder as she sets her bowl of supplies on a counter.

The triplets fan out around her, Huey plucking a whisk and another mixing bowl along the way, before he freezes, just now realizing that this isn’t the kitchen he’s used to. He smiles apologetically as Beakley turns to him. “Sorry, Mrs. B. Can we use this stuff to make a cake?”

The housekeeper gentles her smile, turning back to her own work with a nod. “Use whatever you like, dears. But I expect you to clean up any mess you make yourselves, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the four of them chorus, and Huey drops the family cook-notebook onto the counter, flipping through it rapidly.

“I haven’t gotten the chance to use most of the cake recipes because these _clowns_ -” he elbowed both his brothers simultaneously, to much irritated grumbling, “-only really like carrot cake on our birthday.”

He carefully skims to the back of the book, where several older, carefully laminated pages had been taped in by their Uncle Donald after Huey had run to him in a complete panic after he ripped one when he was eight. When he finds what he thinks is the right one, he turns to Webby for confirmation. “Is this it? Black Forest Ga-too?”

“‘Gateau’. It’s French,” Webby corrects, leaning forward to read the faded swirling script for herself.

“Wait, we’re Scottish _and_  French?” Dewey asked.

Webby bobbed her head cheerfully. “Yep!”

Mrs. Beakley grinned when three shocked faces turned her way. “Mr. McDuck’s mother’s grandmother was from France. That recipe must have been handed down for quite a while before it reached you,” she explained.

All three boys turned to share a disbelieving look. Just how many people out there knew their family’s history better than they did?!

They’re distracted from the abrupt realization that they know next to nothing about their family by Webby’s thoughtful hum. “I think we have all these ingredients on hand, and if not I guess we can improvise if we have to.”

“That won’t be necessary, dear, I went shopping yesterday,” a frazzled Beakley tells her quickly. The boys are a bit afraid to ask what the last ‘improvised’ dish in this kitchen had been like, and luckily none of them do.

Webby perks up. “Oh, yeah! And I got this on Friday!” She leaps across the kitchen, pulling open a drawer to get what she needed. She spun back to the triplets, slapping a large box onto the counter with a proud ‘Ta-da!’

The boys all stare at the industrial tube of multi-colored birthday candles.

Huey’s the first to look back up at her. “I thought Scrooge said he didn’t like buying new candles for every birthday,” he said weakly.

Webby scoffed, waving one hand carelessly. “ _He_ doesn’t like buying new candles. I used my own money to buy these babies!”

Dewey’s eyebrows are threatening to leave his forehead and enter the stratosphere. “You expect all of these to fit on _one_ cake?”

She shrugged cheerfully. “It should all fit fine as long as we write ‘Happy Birthday’ really, _really_ small!”

Louie gives her a flat look. “Webby, there are a hundred candles in this thing.”

Webby blinked, as if seeing something wrong for the first time. “I think I have a few left over from last year. Think that’ll be enough?”

Beakley supposes she shouldn’t have laughed so loudly at the three horrified faces surrounding her granddaughter.

* * *

 

The entire morning has been suspiciously quiet.

Scrooge finds himself checking around corners and edging cautiously from hallway to hallway, half afraid of pranks lying in wait for him in the chill October sunshine. Memories of more than a few congratulatory birthday firecrackers Della had found entirely too entertaining despite nearly giving him a heart attack more than once are at the forefront of his mind as he glares at the doorway of his study, wondering if attempting to enter it would be worth the trouble. He doesn’t know the boys as well as he knew their mother; he doesn’t know what to expect from them, and he’s not exactly eager to find out.

He's just coming to the conclusion that yes, it is perhaps in his best interest to get this over with and see if his study has been invaded by color-coded hooligans, when a throat is cleared quite loudly behind him.

He spins around to find his eldest nephew smirking at him rather widely. “Looking for the boys?” Donald asks, laughter muffled in the question.

Scrooge glares at him distrustfully, remembering far too well just who Della’s accomplice was. “When things are this quiet around here, it means either something’s broken and they’re hiding the evidence, or I’m about to lose a few more of my feathers because of my families’ rather cruel sense of humor. Where are they?”

Donald looks entirely too smug for someone innocent. “In the kitchen with Webby and Mrs. B. I haven’t seen what they’re working on, but from what I heard, it sounds _delicious_.”

Webby in the kitchen. He shudders at the thought.

“Perhaps it would be best for me to head in to the office today after all.” He is not retreating. He is _not._ Scrooge McDuck does not flee from a little girl’s honest attempts to make something edible, he’s just remembered a stack of paperwork he’d left on the corner of his desk to be finished first thing on Monday and-

Two hands clamp around his left arm, and he’s abruptly reminded of the muscles his nephew put on in the Navy as he is calmly dragged down the hallway. “Not so fast, you can’t go leaving without your birthday surprise!” The wicked glee in Donald’s face is entirely too reminiscent of his mother, and Hortense was a woman who took such amusement from only the cruelest of pranks.

There is no escape to be had, not when Donald is this determined.

Scrooge resolves himself to an afternoon of indigestion, a small price to pay if it makes Webbigail and the boys happy, even if he does drag his feet a little on the way to the dining room.

They find Louie in there already, setting the table at a sedate pace. He looks up as they enter, smiling at the sight of his great-uncle’s prisoner status. “Right on time, Uncle Donald. I’ll let them know.” He saunters out of the room.

Scrooge finally manages to free his arm from the steel clamps that are his nephew’s fingers before the door is suddenly kicked open, Dewey flying through to land in a battle-ready pose, pointing an accusatory finger straight at Scrooge’s chest. “ _You_! Why didn’t you tell us today was your birthday, man?!”

Jerking backward at the surprise entrance, Scrooge blinks at the finger rising closer to his face with every second he doesn’t respond. When it’s mere inches away from his beak, he finally grabs the appendage and gently shoves it away. “I didn’t see the point. There’s no reason to raise such a fuss over an old man getting older,” he says, which is true, of course it is, the fact that he didn’t think anyone but Webby would care is definitely not another reason why he didn’t mention it.

“There’s always a reason to raise a fuss for family!” Huey declares as he and Louie follow their brother, both of them beaming happily.

Dewey takes advantage of his shifting attention to dart forward, wrapping his arms around his middle, both of his brothers joining him when Scrooge freezes in surprise. “Happy birthday, Uncle Scrooge!” they all chorus, and this is unexpected.

He’ll have to double-check his pockets for firecrackers, he reminds himself even as he allows his arms to wrap around his trio of nephews, casting a flabbergasted look over his shoulder at Donald only to find a smaller, far more genuine smile on his face as watched his uncle and nephews embrace each other.

“Aww, I see hugs happening! Save some for me!” Webby cries as she exits the kitchen, leading her tray-bearing grandmother.

Seeing his great-grandmother’s favored Black Forest Gateau remade for him when he thought the recipe lost should probably surprise him more, but all Scrooge can really focus on is the tiny forest of candles sprouting from the frosting, every color under the sun decorating the surface like a rainbow.

Only one at the very center of the cake is lit, much to Webby’s clear dissatisfaction if her pout is anything to go by. “Granny says lighting all of them at once would have been a fire hazard,” she explained as the triplets release him and step back, allowing Beakley to offer him the cake with a grin.

“Happy birthday, sir. Make a wish?”

Scrooge can only stare. He’s completely surrounded by people he cares about, people who are genuinely happy that he’s made it through another impossible year, people he’s been dearly missing from his life for so very long.

He can’t think of anything else he could possibly want.

He makes a show of blowing out the candle though, since it seems to mean so very much to Webby, who enthusiastically cheers, “Yeah! Happy one-hundred and fiftieth birthday, Uncle Scrooge!” She darts forward for a hug, snuggling into his chest in spite of the three gaping faces she leaves behind.

“ ** _ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY?!_** ”

**Author's Note:**

> I suck at deadlines. And endings. This should have gone up earlier, but I forgot I had work today. Oh well.  
> Hope you liked it!


End file.
